


Could End In Burning Flames Or Paradise

by sapphire2309



Category: White Collar
Genre: F/F, F/M, Spoilers till 4x16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-05-24 16:24:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6159541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire2309/pseuds/sapphire2309
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her life could be a trail of broken hearts, it could be a trail of close friends. It's both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Could End In Burning Flames Or Paradise

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Style by Taylor Swift, inspiration from a number of songs from her new album 1989, from [these](https://postsecretdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/11-ring.jpg?w=526&h=343) [two](https://postsecretdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/12-frank.jpg?w=526&h=509) postsecrets, and from the prompts Recipe and Limerence (definition: an involuntary state of mind resulting from a romantic attraction to another person, combined with an overwhelming need to have one’s feeling reciprocated). (I was ridiculously uninspired.) For Challenge #26 - Weekly Quick Fic 10 at writerverse.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** White Collar is Jeff Eastin's brainchild. Not mine.  
> 

A ring. That's all she has left.

A ring with two dolphins almost kissing that _hurts_ to look at. A ring that he gave her for their one month anniversary. A ring and a broken heart and too many goddamned tears, they need to stop already.

It was a summer romance, it was destined to end, and end badly. But she was so _stupid_.

It was love at first sight, the kind that never lasts beyond a few days because underneath that beauty, there's always something unappealing. She should have checked. It's a basic survival skill. But she didn't, so it lasted the full two summer months.

She shouldn't have indulged it, wouldn't have if she wasn't so lonely. But she followed the pull of that attraction and did all the right things to draw him to her too and it was so, so good, until it was bad. Until it was absolutely terrible.

She'd wanted him to love her back, needed him to love her back. Now she wonders how much of that was loneliness instead of love.

Because she loved him with her entire self. She loved him because he was a person and she could spend too much time with him without it mattering, and his kisses felt like hugs, and his hugs were even warmer, and lying in his bed, even if he wasn't there, was so much more comfortable than lying in hers, alone, looking across to the twin bed opposite and finding no one there.

She'd depended on him, counted on him as the one person who could give her company. And that was a monumentally bad decision, because it was a summer romance that had to end, not a real relationship, and even if it hadn't ended, even if it had lasted beyond one summer, she would still have woken up sometime and begun to hate who she'd become. She is not the kind of person who depends so much on someone else that she needs them to function. But when she loved him, she was that person.

She's glad it ended quickly, even though it hurt so much. Because if it had lasted longer, she may not have realized that in loving him, she'd forgotten to love herself.

She needs to love herself again, if she's going to go it alone. She has to go it alone, because she doesn't know how to share her space with anyone but Emily, doesn't think she can.

She's going to have to learn again. Because this can never happen again. And the only way she's going to trust her instincts again is if she isn't lonely when they go off.

-:-

  
She doesn't think she'll ever be able to share her space with anyone till she meets Lisa. They share a dorm room, a major, a table in the library once, twice, all the time, quiet conversation turning into light flirting that turns into the most gentle of violent sparks.

Lisa doesn't remind her of Emily, she's nothing like Emily. Emily was gemstone with the slightest touch of colour, hard edges, brilliant light to some people, a diamond blade to others. Lisa is driftwood, gentle but firm, deep brown with the loveliest silver undertones, lodged high on the beach, impossible to move by force, snide comments rolling off her like so much seawater. Sara is frequently lodged in Lisa's side like a seashell in a nook, small and pale and pink and light and easily drawn to sea if Lisa isn't there to hold her back, keep her ashore. She does enjoy being carried off by the tide, but for a while, she stays.

Lisa is her anchor while she chases a combination of art history and law, and figures out how to keep the two together while still being able to break some rules.

Lisa sees her as fireworks and sparkles, a glowing lantern, a laser light, warm and brilliant and always able to think up a prank or make miserable things a lot brighter. Lisa follows her like a curious child, even though she's so cold that she drives most other people away, so bright that their eyes hurt. Lisa follows her as she illuminates dank corners and makes things seem brighter than they are, while somehow still pointing out where darkness hides.

Lisa doesn't know that that's a skill she cultivated waiting for Emily, imagining her dancing with ballerinas, riding horses at a ranch, _safe_.

Lisa is a soothing refrain, Lisa is a known quantity, Lisa is her safe. And she's Lisa's adventure. Maybe they would have made better friends than they did lovers. But Sara doesn't know how to bare her soul to someone and not hold them as close as she can, not make sure they won't tell. So she doesn't.

-:-

  
Leaving her behind hurts. Not all at once, not in one gigantic rush of pain like that summer. But sometimes, in quiet moments, with a question or a comment on her lips, she turns around and expects to see her there.

When she sees empty space, she finds herself rubbing at the spot on her middle finger where she wore that dolphin ring. She doesn't understand it, but she pulls it out when she sees a callous forming, wears it around for a few days, a fortnight, a month.

It's strangely comforting.

-:-

  
23 is a bit too old to learn how to really make friends.

She's had the kind of friend you say hi to and tell about everything that's on the surface, everyone has. She's never known the kind you can trust.

She meets Peter Burke when she's an intern at Sterling Bosch, when he was in the middle of an ambitious attempt to maintain a moustache in the face of Elizabeth's protests. (She has many, many pictures).

He's bright, just bright. No conditions, no requirements. Not like her, not tempered through with a touch too much ice. He smiles and makes terrible puns and is honest in a way that makes it so easy to trust him.

She doesn't trust him, not immediately. It takes about five run-ins, courtesy of Sterling Bosch, before she calls him a friend, and many more before she calls him a close friend. But eventually, after most of a year and a lot of beer, she trusts him enough to let him in on more than the outward, one-dimensional overachiever.

He's someone she can count on. No strings attached. It's almost a curiosity.

-:-

  
Six months into her time at Sterling Bosch, she's thrown to the wolves. Or, more accurately, Landon Shepherd.

Landon Shepherd has been on retainer with Sterling Bosch for almost a year. She's still an unknown, still hasn't quite tied her loyalties to Sterling Bosch, says she's looking for a suitable point of contact. Sara scores her permanent number the first time they meet.

The same day, her internship with Sterling Bosch turns into a full time job with a base salary, not just commissions.

Landon Shepherd is quickly turning into a very useful connection.

-:-

  
Neal is a wild card.

When she meets him, she's very firmly in love with herself, she doesn't think he's going to get under her skin. But he does, oh, he does.

They get together, break up, rinse, repeat, and it hurts every time, it hurts like losing a part of herself, she _swore_ she'd never let anyone do that to her again, but Neal has, and she doesn't know whether deciding to give them another shot hurts more because she knows it'll be good or because she knows it won't end well.

She's fine without him. It's just when they break apart, she becomes that brokenhearted girl she was after that summer. It's a recipe for madness, because she hates who she became that summer, she wants to never be that person again. She promised herself that it would never happen again, but it does.

She hates him for it. But she loves him for everything else.

-:-

  
She told Neal and Peter that Shepherd retrieved a broken heel from Ivanka Trump's air vent. She didn't mention that Shepherd also wiped down any prints she might have left and took care of a few seconds of security tape. She's thorough. She probably already knows about Neal.

But she also knows that Shepherd plays a good game, doesn't hit below the belt. She'll use the knowledge she has, but she won't use it spitefully.

She lets them try to take her down, knowing full well that no matter how much she helps them, they'll fail.

-:-

  
This time, she left Neal.

They alternate very neatly. She left, he left, she left. And now she's in London and very, very drunk on cheap wine and that damn ring is in her hand again, she dug it out from a crevice of her one suitcase. It feels like she's pressing every piece of her broken heart into it, like that one ring carries all her heartbreak all by itself. It must be a heavy burden.

She has one finger hovering over Neal's name in her contacts. She wants to go it alone, she wants to give in and call him.

She grits her teeth, finds some strength, and hurls her phone across the room. It lands on a sofa, far enough that she's not going to pick herself up off the floor to go get it. Good. She'll regret it if she dials his number now.

She makes an invisible snow angel on the floor and starts to laugh and suddenly realizes, that one little display of resistance has made her lighter already. Usually, she takes the entire night she's granted herself to be utterly miserable, and waits till dawn to move the hell on. But she's already lighter, already better, already happier.

Maybe it's because they were just _amis amants_. Maybe it's because things only got very, very real right before she left, which wasn't too long. Whatever it is, she's glad he's losing that power he had.

Or maybe she's sad. Maybe it felt good to have one person who mattered more than most, one person who could hurt her more than most.

She doesn't know.

She gets up, drops the ring somewhere on the floor, stumbles into bed, and sleeps soundly, something she's never done the night after. It feels good. Sleep always feels good.

-:-

  
She has more friends than she expected to.

Without a mediator, she wasn't entirely sure how she'd do on the meeting people front. But it seems that the higher up she goes, the easier it is to find good, sensible people whose brains haven't entirely been eaten out by worms. And running the London branch of Sterling Bosch is pretty high.

She knows more people than she thought was possible. She knows the guy who mans the reception and always knows who needs coffee when, she knows the best investigator in the branch, she knows the people to avoid, she knows the people who deserve a raise or a better job, and she uses that knowledge. She builds a reputation for being tough but fair, somehow manages to make herself decently approachable in the middle of all that, it's probably because she doesn't cut back on the sarcasm at all.

She could get used to this.

If there was a way to combine investigating with managing the office, though, she'd take it in a heartbeat, might even compromise on the management half of it. Maybe that need for adventure will grow stronger as time passes, maybe it'll die out gracefully, maybe she'll find someone who fulfills it. She doesn't know. For now, she's perfectly happy around all these new faces, in a way that she never thought was possible.

-:-

  
The ring with the two dolphins is one of the very few things she's held on to over time. She doesn't need it anymore. But sometimes she looks at it and wonders how this became a thing she didn't let go of. It could easily have gotten lost between moves, been thrown out after that dreadful summer, been stolen by a kid who liked shiny things. But it's still here.

She's just thankful it's very portable. She doesn't like dead weight.

A lifetime of painful break ups, in one little ring. Easily hidden in her palm. Easily dropped. Easily lost.

She rolls it between her fingers, doesn't let it fall, she doesn't want to lose them.

"What's that?" Neal asks as he sits down next to her.

"Too many broken hearts."

Neal puts his hand over hers, the ring on his finger clinking against the one she's holding. He holds her hand and the ring, kisses her neck gently, looks at her, more than a little guilty. He knows that he's responsible for at least a couple of those broken hearts. He holds the ring between their hands like he wants to wipe them out.

He isn't as much of a wild card anymore. Time has mellowed him, experience has helped her understand him better. Not completely, but better. At the very least, she knows that he takes the blame for all the wrong things.

She's not going to let him.

"They were important," she says. _Don't even try._

He lets go of her hand, looks at the ring for a few moments, hands it back to her. "They're beautiful," he says with a small smile and a little too much pain in his eyes. He suddenly looks his age, a combination of the silver hair and the tired look.

She kisses it away. The pain, the heartbreak, all of it.


End file.
